Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Villar seeks more help for teachers

Citing the hazards faced by teachers during elections, Nationalista President Senator Manny Villar filed a Senate bill seeking to provide legal assistance, financial support to teachers who perform their duties during elections.

“Teachers undergo a lot of stress before, during and, after elections. In fact, I learned that they are still not trained in how to use the machines that will be used in the upcoming 2010 elections. This is the first nationwide computerized elections in the country and yet the teachers who will be the front-liners are still untrained until now,” said Villar.

He said that the scheduled training for the estimated 400,000 public school teachers who will man the polling precincts has been postponed to February by the Commission on Elections.

During previous elections, there have been many reports of harassment, abuse and even death of public school teachers.

Thus, Villar filed earlier this year Senate Bill 3399 or ‘An Act to Provide Free Legal Assistance and Financial Support to Public School Teacher Charged with Election-Related Offenses’, which will ensure that the teachers welfare are well taken care of. “Public school teachers serve as vanguards of the people’s votes.

They deserve to be protected in the same manner that we want our votes protected,” said Villar.

According to Villar, on top of their hard work and measly allowance, teachers experience a lot of hardships in performing their duties during elections. Many of them are even slapped with legal or court cases in order to harass them.

These cases unduly burden the poor teachers who risked their lives for a clean and honest election.

This bill seeks to provide a mechanism for a free legal assistance to teachers who are charged with cases arising from a lawful discharge of professional duties during elections,” cited Villar in S.B. 3399.